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U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston is Rotary guest

DeAnn Komanecky/Effingham Now
U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston was the guest speaker at the Effingham County Rotary Club meeting on Thursday. After speaking to the crowd Kingston stopped to meet the youngest person attending, Jayden Sapp.

U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston told a packed meeting of the Effingham County Rotary Club Thursday that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision upholding the Affordable Care Act was political.

“I was shocked by Judge Roberts’ behavior,” Kingston said. “I feel he was intimated by a lot of criticism of the court. He wiggled and squirmed his way to get where he wanted to be. He made a very political decision.”

Kingston, who represents Georgia’s 1st District, said he also saw little chance of a repeal of the Act.

“I don’t see it happening,” Kingston said. “What I do see is getting a mixed bag. People will pick and choose.”

Kingston said the issue isn’t going away anytime soon.

“I think we’ll be fighting about this for a long time.”

Kingston also expressed concern about the regulatory environment killing small business.

Kingston pointed to the 13-year process in enlarging the port in Savannah, compared to port expansion in China.

“13 years and it is still not approved,” he said. “Meanwhile China has built a port that is bigger from start to finish.”

Kingston said one thing that keeps him awake at night is cyber security.

“Russia and China spy on us on a regular basis,” Kingston said. “That’s the Chinese government and the Russian government. They’re not just looking at DOD, or the CDC computers, or Boeing or Lockheed. They are looking at paper mill computers, they are looking at inventors’ computers. Anything we have done, they want to look at and figure out how they can do it, duplicate it, and do it cheaper.

“It is national security and an economic threat. Anybody that is a little paranoid about China isn’t wrong.”

Speaking on the federal debt, Kingston said he doesn’t believe the United States has a revenue problem.

“We have a spending problem,” he said. “In my opinion spending is out of control.”

Kingston pointed to the federal food stamp program, which he said had gone from costing taxpayers $39 billion in 2008 to almost $80 billion today.

Kingston said he’d tried to tighten up some areas of the program but had failed.

“One of the things you can do with your food stamp card is buy a frappuccino if there is a Starbucks inside of the Safeway,” he said. “I feel that if I have to buy your food because you don’t have any, you should be eating what I’m eating, which is not lobster, and it’s not steak, and it’s not a $4 frappuccino.”

Kingston said he is also concerned with some Department of Defense spending.

Kingston said right now Department of Defense plans spending of $80 million this year to sponsor NASCAR, professional wrestling and motorcross sports.

“I have, along with a very liberal congresswoman out of Minnesota, offered an amendment to kill that funding.”

Kingston said he understands the military’s need to recruit, but with all branches reducing troops the money should not be spent.

Kingston said he’d taken some grief for that stand.

“You’d have thought I’d attacked apple pie.”

Kingston is a Republican and is seeking his 11th term in the U.S. Congress.